


is this allowed?

by attheborder



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Comedy, Crack, F/M, Female Beelzebub (Good Omens), First Time, Fluff and Humor, Getting Together, Inappropriate Workplace Behavior, M/M, Phone Sex, i swear this is as much an A/C fic as it is a thesis on my crack OTP, sitcom vibes, stupid disguises, you hate to see it, ~always sunny intro music starts playing~
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-15
Updated: 2019-06-15
Packaged: 2020-05-12 04:49:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19221922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/attheborder/pseuds/attheborder
Summary: Discreet phone sex on the interoffice line isn’t going to cut it anymore. Six weeks after the world summarily failed to end, the increasingly horny Beelzebub and Gabriel are desperate to know whether angels and demons canactuallyhave sex with each other without bursting into flames, or disintegrating into piles of goo. And there’s only one couple they know of whose actions down on Earth might hold the answer…





	is this allowed?

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [【授权翻译】is this allowed 这可以吗？](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23333224) by [GlaireG](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GlaireG/pseuds/GlaireG)



_A telephone conversation between two entities, only the latest in a series of such calls whose frequency had increased nearly exponentially in the weeks since Armageddon was averted:_

“.... and I’ll lick you all over, then I’ll suck on your fingers until they get all wrinkly and pruny, and I’ll rub my grime and filth everywhere, you’ll be covered in it…”

“Yeah, yeah, keep talking dirty like that…. Literally, dirty. So much dirt. Ugh, Beezie, you’ll taste so _disgusting...”_

“I’ll taste zzzzzoooo bad, Gabe. You’ll vomit once you get too close, just from the smell... And then I’ll take the vomit and rub it all over myself, like perfume, and even  _then_ you won’t be able to _resist_ me, not for a second.”

“I wish I could drop through a hole in the ceiling and sweep you off your feet. We could do it right on your desk. My nice clothes would get all stained with ink and coffee and I wouldn’t even care, you’d feel so _good_ — sorry, I mean, _bad,_ baby _—_ mmmmm…”

“Why don’t you? I can’t take it any longer. Come down here _right now_ . I can’t ssszztand you being just a few floors above me, this whole time, I can practically feel your weight on top of me, you big lump of _soap,_ scrub me _raw_ …”

“We can’t. We know we can’t. We’d probably both disintegrate. It’d be like holy water, worse than holy water, if I laid a hand on you…”

“You don’t know that. You can’t prove that.”

“Could you prove the opposite? Would you be willing to take the risk? We may have our fun here, but extinction is serious business. I know how vain you demons can get, you wouldn’t risk your perfect, horrible body for little old _me…_ would you?”

“... I could prove it. _We_ could prove that it’s posszzzzzible. We could even prove that it’s already been done. That our way forward is clear.”

“Already been done? By who….”

“You know. You know very well who.”

“Oh. _Them_.”

“Yes. Them.”

“But— no. They wouldn’t. They haven’t— they aren’t—”

“They definitely _are_.”

“They definitely are not! They’d—well,  _he’d_ never—”

“Classzzzic angel. Can’t see what’s right in front of his eyes. It’s no wonder you never found out what happened to the Antichrist until it was too late.”

“Hey. Hey. No need for the ad-hominems, Beezie. Anyway, I bet you they’re not. No way. I’d put money on it.”

“I do not have uszzzzze for human money. And nor do you, Gabe… But. Let me suggest a friendly wager, between… er, enemieszzz.”

“You’re speaking my language, Beezie baby.”

“If you are right, I’ll… hm. Let’s ssssszzzzay, I’ll waive the triplicate requirements for travel paperwork between here and the upstairs for all of your upper-level management during the next few months of arbitration. It’ll save you _hours_. Bet that’s getting you rock-hard, just thinking about it, the sheer efficiency of it all…”

“And if you win?”

“Mm. I’m _sure_ I can think of… a suitable prizzzze, in the event that my position is proven, and certain consequences are diszzzproven alongside it… A prize involving you, me, and all the new and exciting holes I could open up on my body for you to fit yourself inside of…”

“Look. Love the sound of this. Love where this is going. I really do. But we _did_ promise we’d leave them alone. I mean, I’m not one to go back on my word. Usually. Most times. Generally, broadly speaking, I don’t—”

“I also promiszzzed, Gabe. And we would not dare to provoke them, of course... But this wouldn’t be… interference. They wouldn’t know we were there. It’d simply be... surveillance.”

“Right. Yes. Yes! In service of... a larger point to be made….”

“Indeed. _Your_ ‘larger’ ‘point,’ if you know what I mean… let’s keep going, Gabe, I’m _ssszzzzo_ wet, although that might just be the pus…”

 

***

 

There was something going on.

Crowley was the first one to notice a dark head disappearing behind a tree as he strolled through St. James’ Park on his way to meet with Aziraphale. When he arrived at their bench, he gave the angel a quick nod, of the type universally understood to mean “let’s take this elsewhere,” but Aziraphale looked at him quizzically and held up the coffee he’d brought for him (cold brew on ice, splash of oat milk).

“We’re being _watched,”_ Crowley muttered, taking the coffee. He didn’t sit down.

Aziraphale said, “Yes, quite. I had two _different_ young men walk by and ask me where I got my overcoat. Do you really think camelhair is coming back into style? I’ve always said that it was only a matter of—”

“ _Angel._ Look.”

Crowley jabbed a finger in the direction of the tree, a few dozen yards away. Aziraphale cast a subtle look over, and glimpsed that same small, dark form ducking back out of sight. He stiffened immediately, and then got up off the bench, prepared to abandon ship.

“Is that….?” he hesitated.

“Beelzebub,” growled Crowley. “I’d recognize that greasy mop anywhere.”

“But what could she possibly want? They’re all _terrified_ of you— of us—”

“Right,” said Crowley, “and besides, she _hates_ hanging about on Earth. Says it makes her hay fever act up. She always sends a few of her little underlings instead…”

Aziraphale gulped, gripping his travel tea mug tightly. Together, they turned and walked in the opposite direction, away from the half-seen interloper.

“Is it a test? Do you think they suspect…?”

Crowley slurped at his wildly over-caffeinated beverage, deep in thought. After a moment, he looked back up at Aziraphale.

“No. No chance. It’s been weeks. Our plan _worked,_ angel, I don’t want you worrying. This is something else. Something… personal, something she wouldn’t be comfortable sending Dagon or Hastur to do.... _Must_ be.”

Aziraphale nodded, apparently satisfied with this line of reasoning. “I propose,” he said, “that we simply go about our business as usual. We have nothing to hide, and she’ll soon realize that.”

“Mmhmm. Yup,” Crowley said. He really hoped the angel was right.

 

***

 

The bookshop’s busy hours were over, which meant that the number of customers browsing through its dusty interior dropped precipitously from two all the way to zero. This was usually Crowley’s cue to swan in through the front door, clutching some bottle or another and bragging loudly about whatever minor misfortune he’d managed to consternate the good citizens of London with on that particular day.

When he entered late that afternoon, a few days after the strange encounter in the park, Aziraphale was carefully sorting and shelving a new shipment of books from a supplier in Belgium, so Crowley draped himself across one of the reading chairs that dotted the shop and waited for the angel to finish up so that they could finally get the evening started.

“Oh dear, this one has some damage,” said Aziraphale, standing at the foot of his shelving ladder, paging through a copy of _Don Quixote._ He looked up at Crowley. “I’ll have to see if they mentioned it on the packing sl—”

He cut off abruptly, his eyes gone hugely wide and fearful at something behind Crowley, back at the front window of the shop.  

Crowley turned around so quickly that his neck seized up, but he only caught the very edge of a gray blur moving away from the window. He twisted back around to face Aziraphale, his knuckles now white as he gripped the edge of the armchair.

“What— what did you see? Was it _her_ again?” Crowley said, growing rapidly anxious at the thought of his (former?) boss coming anywhere _near_ Aziraphale’s precious establishment.

Aziraphale shook his head. “No— It was— Well, I could _swear_ it was…”

“ _Who?”_ Crowley hissed.

“It was _Gabriel,”_ said Aziraphale nervously. “No, it _was_ him, I know it was, but he was—er, wearing a fake mustache, I believe.”

“ _What?_ ” Crowley said. The mental schema that had deemed the previous occurrence to surely be part of some Hell-originating plot had now been complicated infinitely by this unexpected addition.

“Yes, very strange,” said Aziraphale. “He was definitely _watching_ us, just like Beelzebub the other day. What do you think is going on?”

“I think,” Crowley said, “that you should stop organizing those books, and we should go into the back room, close the windows, get very drunk, and try not to dwell on this any further.”

Aziraphale quickly agreed upon this course of action.

 

***

 

The next evening, Gabriel and Beelzebub took a table across the room from Aziraphale and Crowley at a fine dining establishment in Kensington. Gabriel’s enormous fake mustache was slipping off slowly as he ostentatiously pretended to page through the menu. Over his shoulder, Beelzebub was squinting through a pair of incredibly ugly cat-eye sunglasses at the angel and the demon.

The angel was leaning in near to the demon, Beelzebub could see, and they were sharing some kind of private joke, Crowley laughing in a decidedly non-demonic manner as his hands brushed up against Aziraphale’s jacket sleeve. They’d ordered drinks and food and were _consuming_ them; Beelzebub and Gabriel’s collective disgust at this was not marred for a single second by a reasonable comparison to their own similarly _earthly_ objective.

“They sure are sitting really close to each other,” remarked Gabriel.

“But they’re not _doing it._ We haven’t seen them actually _do it!_ ” Beelzebub gripped her unfilled wine glass so hard that it cracked; Gabriel miracled it intact again with a single glance, and then looked back up at her. (An objective onlooker would have said his expression was condescending, but they would be incorrect: that was, in fact, just his face.)

“Beezie, I know you don’t come down— sorry, _up_ here often, so I wouldn’t expect you to understand the mechanics of privacy as established amongst humankind— which those _freaks_ over there practically count themselves as members of, at this point. They’re not gonna do it _here,_ or in the _park,_ or in a shop _–”_

“They’re... not?”

“No, baby B. If they’re doing it— which _I_ still don’t think they _are,_ I hope you’re getting ready to sign that waiver— they’ll do it when they’re _alone._ In a room together, somewhere.”

Beelzebub set her teeth. She was sitting very, very close to Gabriel, and though she’d never admit it to herself, she found him even more attractive with that _thing_ poorly attached to his upper lip.

“We’ll catch them,” she growled. “We’ll spot them, they can’t pozzzzzibly keep their hands off each other for very much longer, and when they _snap,_ we’ll have our proof, and _then_ we can—”

Her hand had begun to wander dangerously close to the steak knife set at the side of her empty plate. Gabriel cleared his throat pointedly, stilling her motion.

“Sorry,” she muttered. “Sorry. I just… I just want…”

Gabriel leaned over. “Tell me what you want, Beezie,” he said in a gravelly low voice, which made an asymptotic approach to the concept of “sexy” but never quite managed to get there.

“I want,” said Beelzebub, “to kill every human in this horrid restaurant with a putrid, toxic gas, and then I want you to fuck me hard on top of a pile of their bodies.”  

“You disgust me,” he said, but the expression on his face was one of utter delight and infatuation. “But let your freak flag fly, babe. Hey— get it? _Fly?”_

 

***

 

Crowley whispered, “That’s them, over there. Sitting _together._ Christ, they look ridiculous!”

Aziraphale had dearly wished he could spare the sight some direct eye contact, but they both knew it would be wildly unwise to let on that they were aware of their status as objects of surveillance. So the angel let the one in the dark sunglasses do all of the unobserved looking.

“Is he wearing that—”

“Mustache, yes. Truly lives up to expectations.”

Aziraphale picked at his food silently, his appetite unusually diminished by this ongoing disturbance of their hard-won peace.

“But I just can’t figure it out,” Crowley went on. “What the _hell_ do they _want?”_

“If we knew the answer to that,” sighed Aziraphale, “I think I’d be enjoying my dinner far more than I am. It’s lovely, but I’m just so–”

“I know, angel. It’s strange. But let’s just ignore them tonight. Certainly, they’ll have to get bored eventually just watching us enjoy each others’ company.”

Aziraphale had to suppose Crowley was right. But even as they passed the rest of the evening in some semblance of their normal convivial atmosphere, he was growing more and more apprehensive of the moment when whatever was _really_ going on would reveal itself to them.

 

***

 

The answer, in the end, came from unexpected quarters, a few days later. Two quarters, specifically.

(A half?)

Crowley’s mobile rang, one afternoon as he was misting his plants; his caller ID identified the source as the main office line.

“The hell do you want?” Crowley drawled, hoping he sounded coolly threatening enough. He was still not quite sure if he’d ever be able to live up to the standard Aziraphale had set for him at the trial.

“Crowley, can you get _on_ with it?” came an uncharacteristically desperate moan.

“Dagon? That you?” Crowley frowned.

“If this goes on for any longer, we’re doomed. She’s letting the paperwork pile up, not reassigning the interns, the corridors are flooding every other day now cause the plumber-beasts haven’t been getting their overtime—”

“I— er— well— Dagon, I’d love to help, you know me, but it would really be a great start if I could get the lowdown on _who_ and _what_ you’re talking about.”

“It’s Beelzebub!” whined Dagon. “She’s obsessed! Obsessed with the _question!”_

His mind was quickly connecting the dots, but there was still a puzzle piece missing, a great gaping hole in his understanding of the situation.

“What,” he asked, “is the _question?”_

Dagon laughed, the ugly, phlegmatic laugh of the truly, demonically wicked, but it was tinged with a strange layer of near-human worry. “Well. You know. Er. The… question. Of…. Can _we_ ... do it with _them_?”

Crowley’s chest tightened as he cast this in light of what he’d speculated to Aziraphale, so many weeks ago— Heaven and Hell _together,_ against the humans, the _real_ upcoming war— but no, this _couldn’t_ be what Dagon was referring to, it was too _soon,_ far too soon, he’d barely gotten caught up on his television—

He cleared his throat, forcing himself to ask. “Er… _do it_?”

“You know. _Do it._ Sex. The fucking, and all.”

“Ah.”

“If she doesn’t get her proof soon that she won’t explode into demonic confetti if she lets Gabriel _wiggle_ her _woggle_ , she’s going to burn up with lust so bad she’ll go _catatonic._ We’ll have to lock her up. Padded room and all. Then _I’ll_ have to do _her_ job, and I’ll have to get Hastur to do _my_ job, and _oh,_ it’ll be an unholy mess— I mean, you know. A _holy_ mess— so _please,_ Crowley, for the sake of my work/death balance, just _get on with it.”_

“You mean I—”

“Yes! Just _let_ the buggers see you going at it, with that frilly friend of yours! _Please,_ for Hell’s sake—”

“Well. Mm. Right. I’ll see what I can do.”

He hung up the phone so fast that his hand got whiplash.

 

***

 

Michael, for her part, sought Aziraphale out in person. She believed, in strict accordance with the current orthodoxy of Heaven’s management structure, that face-to-face interaction was always preferable, even if, and _especially_ if, the necessitated conversation was of a _sensitive_ nature.

She rang the bell at Aziraphale’s counter, and he emerged reluctantly from the back a few moments later.

“Oh! Archangel Michael, I— I wasn’t expecting you. _”_

It was true. He most definitely had not been. And, this being the first time he’d seen her since his little bathtub triumph, Aziraphale was struck with the distinct and embarrassing urge, emanating from some deep remnant of his formerly-obedient angelic soul, to _apologize._ As she spoke, however, said urge dissipated immediately, replaced with sheer slow-growing confusion.

“Listen, I’m going to be straightforward with you,” she said, leaning over the counter. “Ever since Gabriel had his extended encounter with Lord Beelzebub in Tadfield, full courtesy of your regrettable scheme _,_ he’s not been… Hm. Well. He’s had a bit of a _fixation_.”

“Is that so?” said Aziraphale.

Michael pursed her lips, hesitating, as if she didn’t quite know how to say what she needed to say.

“Yes,” she said. “He has become wildly distracted by the _possibility_ of... How shall I say. _Earthly fulfillment._ ”

Aziraphale quirked an eyebrow. “Not with—?”

“With the Lord of Hell, yes, I know. I _know._ We’ve got Heaven’s best psychoanalysts on it, but in the meantime, we need help getting this to a resolution. Gabriel’s ongoing dereliction of duty in favor of this little _game_ of his is having large-scale effects on the smooth operation of our office. We’re in the middle of ongoing active arbitration, schedules packed, everyone double-booked but _nobody_ can get him on the phone when they need him, the line’s tied up because he’s always— oh, I don’t even want to _think_ about it!”

She shook her head, chasing away unbidden visions, and took a deep, calming yoga breath.

“This all seems very stressful,” Aziraphale said, attempting to inject synthetic sympathy into his tone, “but... what does it have to do with me?”

She looked at him pointedly.

“Well,” she said, “I’d have thought it would be obvious. He’s wasting his time down here, practically stalking you and your _friend_ , because he needs an answer to his question. Therefore, you simply need to provide one.”

“...Are you _implying_ that _I_ must engage in _sinful actions_ with a _demon_ solely in order to avert some kind of _bureaucratic crisis_?” said Aziraphale, trying to dial the indignation up past maximum. He felt sweat begin to collect under his collar.

“Oh, don’t give me that rubbish,” Michael said. “There’s no need to play coy. It’s obvious that you and the demon Crowley have _long_ since consummated your little _partnership._ ”

Aziraphale had, in fact, been bodily present at the very symposium in Athens where the concept of irony had been explicated for the first time in human history, but nothing could have prepared him for the hot flush of dissonance that swept down the length of his body upon hearing this notion so directly delineated.

Because the fact of the matter was, he _hadn’t_ done it. Not with Crowley. Not in the way she was suggesting.

Of course, he’d thought about it. He’d spent approximately six thousand years alternating between thinking about it, _not_ thinking about it, thinking about not thinking about it but ending up thinking about it anyway, and distracting himself from thinking about it by means of, well, _association_ with certain humans throughout history.

But at the end of the day, even on those optimistic mornings when he was more bullish than usual on the prospect of Crowley’s potential reciprocation, it was that same fundamental question, the one that had driven Beelzebub and Gabriel to stick on idiotic disguises and perform an artless stakeout, that had always prevented Aziraphale from taking things that one step further.

It didn’t bear thinking about, what might happen if he and Crowley went… _all the way._ Surely, the horrible images that had crossed his own mind for millennia upon contemplation of worst-case scenarios were the same ones that were torturing Gabriel into such uncharacteristic unprofessionalism. He _almost_ felt a twinge of sympathy for the archangel, but then fairly easily managed to suppress it.

Aziraphale realized he’d been staring off into the middle distance for just a shade too long. Michael was tapping her fingers on his counter, giving him a meaningful look.

“Right,” said Aziraphale politely. “I appreciate you letting me into your confidence on this. I really do.”

“So you’ll do it?” Michael asked eagerly.

He smiled, a tight and false smile propped up by nothing but a mounting internal panic, and came around the counter to hastily usher the archangel out of his shop.

“Thanks for coming by, Michael, really so nice to catch up, I’m afraid I’ve got to close the store now, I’ll see you when I see you, hope you have a lovely evening—”

And then she was out the door, which Aziraphale quickly locked behind her, and then leaned against, breathing rapidly and making no effort whatsoever to calm himself down.

“Oh dear,” he said out loud, to nobody at all.

 

***

 

The angel and the demon caught up with each other by phone shortly after these parallel encounters.

“Now that we know what’s going on,” Crowley was saying, “the solution is obvious.”

“It is?” Aziraphale said.

“All we need to do,” said Crowley, “to get them off our backs, is give them the answer to their question. The answer they want. Then they’ll be far too _distracted_ to keep an eye on _us_ for any longer, let alone work together to plan to wage a joint war against all of humanity. And just like that, everybody wins.”

“But—  _we_ don’t even know the answer...!” Aziraphale stammered. He wasn’t letting himself think at all about where the demon’s line of suggestion could be heading.

Crowley tsked. “No, no, see, that doesn’t _matter,”_ he said. “We just need to make them _think_ we do. Listen, listen, I’ve got it all planned– we find a suitable location— I’m thinking, hmm, private room, with a window looking out onto some yard or garden, where they can ineffectively sequester themselves— then we _perform_ a little bit of convincing _theater_ for our _captive audience,_ if you get my drift.”

“Ah,” said Aziraphale. “I see.” Something that had momentarily swelled inside of him shrunk back down rapidly to its normal size.

“Foolproof, am I right?” said Crowley. “Plus, if the real answer’s _no,_ we _then_ get to watch those buffoons burst into flames, or whatever. Should be entertaining, either way.”

“Indeed,” said Aziraphale. He thought for a moment.  

“I think,” he said slowly, “the back parlor at Mrs. Filigree’s Rose Garden & Tea Room would do nicely for such an… _event.”_

Crowley’s grin was practically audible through the phone. “Perfect. See you there, angel.”

 

***

 

The private back parlor in question, miraculously available for a walk-in reservation on the sunny September afternoon of the following day, hewed near-perfectly to Crowley’s original vision for his master plan.

Chairs, ottomans, and a large sofa surrounded a central table, upon which their tea had been neatly placed. The low back of the brocade sofa faced the broad bay window, which looked out over a neatly maintained rose garden lined with conveniently-placed hedgerows, bushes, and stone pillars.

Sitting close to each other on the sofa, Crowley and Aziraphale sipped their tea and made light conversation; Crowley darted his eyes over towards the garden every few minutes, seeking out the obvious shapes of Gabriel and Beelzebub amongst the flower bushes past the open window. Finally, a rustle of leaves caught his ear, and he turned slightly to catch a glimpse, out of the corner of his shades, of the unmistakable shapes of the Lord of Hell and the Archangel themselves. Gabriel was wearing a _very_ stupid hat.

He kicked at Aziraphale’s ankle. The angel looked up, suddenly alert.

“They’re over there. I saw their heads ducking down below the hedge,” Crowley whispered, minding the open window that would be carrying the sounds of their pretense all the way back to their eavesdroppers. “Like a couple of _children,_ this is almost too _easy—”_

“So they’re watching? Right now? You’re sure?” Aziraphale said, almost inaudibly, placing his tea down on the table.

“Positive.”

“Well, then. Shall we begin?”

With a playful glint in his eye, Crowley theatrically pushed Aziraphale back onto the couch.

 

***

 

“Yes! Oh, _yessszzzz!_ There they _go!_ ”

“...Wow.”

“I _told_ you, Gabe, I _knew_ it, they do it _all the time,_ do you _hear_ that?”

“Oh, I hear it. Oh, I _really_ hear it— and I _see_ it— what the hell’s that demon doing with his _legs—”_

“Oh, who _cares,_ you big lummox, can’t you see they’re not in any danger— I can’t take it any longer, there’zzzzz your damned _proof,_ now damn _yourself_ and _fuck me_ _now!”_

“Yes, your Unholiness, right away, sir—!”

***

 

The charade proceeded apace.

Going unacknowledged, in the moment, was the apparent fact that neither of them needed to question nor clarify the procedures necessary to produce a convincing facsimile of the deed.

Clothes came off, and were flung dramatically into the air; limbs were flailed over and above the sofa back, for maximum visual impact from a distance; breathless oaths were shouted in the direction of the window.

And then, after a long while of this, just as Aziraphale thought he wouldn’t be able to bear it for a second longer, this frenzied pantomime, a sad parody of the real thing, Crowley so _close_ to him, the closest he’d _ever_ been, warm and sweaty and _real_ yet seemingly miles away, caught up in the performance of it all, he wasn’t even looking into Aziraphale’s _eyes_ as he moaned his _name—_

Crowley abruptly stopped moving above Aziraphale, his finger raised as if to pinpoint something in the air around them.

“Hold on— hold _on—”_

“What is it?”

Crowley’s face was unreadable. “I think… I think I hear—”

And then he rocketed up off Aziraphale’s body and onto his knees, leaning over the back of the sofa and looking directly out the window, towards the direction of the hedge.

Aziraphale curled up in the corner of the sofa, his eyes shut tightly and his fingers in his ears, bracing himself for some terrible blast of hellfire, some curdling death-screams that would indicate the fatal futility of the exercise they’d just _tricked_ the secondmost-powerful beings in Heaven and Hell into performing—

But after a moment, there was nothing but a hand shaking his shoulder gently.

Crowley said, “Aziraphale. It’s all right.”

“No explosions?”

“Nope.”

“No disintegration…?”

“Doesn’t look like it.”

Aziraphale uncovered his ears, and opened his eyes. He got up on his knees and peered over the sofa, next to Crowley. He heard a very loud, high-pitched squeal, emerging directly from the hedge— it was impossible to tell who it had come from. Leaves were shaking themselves down from the hedge’s branches as they were rocked fiercely by the movement below, and a stupid hat was sent flying into the air, landing with abandon on top of a nearby rose bush.

“It sounds like,” Crowley said slowly, “they’re having… _fun_.”

“Yes,” said Aziraphale, listening to the joyous squelching being carried through the window by the autumn breeze. “You’re right. I think it does.”

Then, holding Crowley’s gaze, he leaned over the back of the sofa and drew the window closed, latching it shut. The sounds from outside ceased.

And, to the angel’s utter relief, Crowley caught on. He reached up, and pulled down the shade. The room was dimmer, now, and quieter.

“Angel,” said Crowley, “I’ve just had a wonderful idea.”

Aziraphale smiled. “Yes?”

Then Crowley, for the second time that hour, put a hand on Aziraphale’s chest and pushed him down onto the sofa. Now, though, it was a slower, smaller movement, infinitely gentler, infinitely more _real._

“How about we try that again?” he said, and now, oh, _now_ he was finally looking into Aziraphale’s eyes. “Our clothes are already off, after all.”

“They are,” agreed Aziraphale. He brought a hand up to Crowley’s face. “And this time,” the angel suggested, “be a gentleman, why don’t you, and kiss me first.”

So Crowley did.

 

 

 

 

 

 

****

**Author's Note:**

> Title from [here,](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aF1qQxPhybE) obviously.  
>  
> 
> [inspo for Crowley and Aziraphale faking it through the window, for your edification](https://youtu.be/SND3v0i9uhE?t=154)
> 
> i am on tumblr! [@areyougonnabe](http://areyougonnabe.tumblr.com)


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